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.. image:: https://travis-ci.org/lyda/chkcrontab.png?branch=master
:alt: Build status
Crontab linter
==============
chkcrontab is a script to check crontab files like those in
``/etc/cron.d`` and ``/etc/crontab``. It tries to catch glaring
errors and warn on suspect lines in a crontab file. Some valid
lines will generate warnings. Certain silly yet valid crontab lines
will generate errors as well.
Run this by doing::
chkcrontab crontab_file
Errors will cause a non-zero exit code. Warnings alone will not.
To see sample output for a bad crontab, run the following::
./chkcrontab ./tests/test_crontab
See the ``./tests/test_crontab.disable`` crontab for how to disable
warnings and errors.
Output Description
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The output of ``chkcrontab`` is described on the `CheckCrontab`_
wiki page. A link to it appears in the output if there were any
warnings or errors. It also suggests ways to fix the reported
issues.
Contributions are welcome! Please add unit tests for new features
or bug fixes. To run all the unit tests run ``./setup test``.
If you have `tox`_ installed, just run ``tox``.
You can review `coverage`_ of added tests by running
``coverage run setup.py test`` and then running
``coverage report -m``.
Note that tests are run on `Travis`_ for all supported python
versions whenever the tree on github is pushed to.
The packaged version is available via ``pip`` or ``easy_install``
as ``chkcrontab``. The project page is on `pypi`_:
The source code is available in the following locations:
* Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/lyda/chkcrontab/
* Github: https://github.com/lyda/chkcrontab
* Gitorious: https://gitorious.org/uu/chkcrontab
Pull requests on any of those platforms or emailed patches are fine.
Opening issues on github is easiest, but I'll check any of them.
* Look for duplicate entries. Puppet sometimes loads up crontabs
with dups.
* Check for backticks. (why?)
* Make sure MAILTO and PATH are set (perhaps others?).
* Add tests for command line.
* Enable it to parse user crontabs: https://code.google.com/p/chkcrontab/issues/detail?id=2
* Make "acceptable filenames" a configurable thing: https://github.com/lyda/chkcrontab/issues/4
Credits
=======
- `Kevin Lyda`_: Who got burned one too many times by broken crontabs.
.. _`tox`: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/tox
.. _`coverage`: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/coverage
.. _`Travis`: https://travis-ci.org/lyda/chkcrontab
.. _`CheckCrontab`: http://goo.gl/7XS9q